SAO PAULO – American fans decked out in red, white and blue watched their team’s lone public training session in Brazil, cheering and seeking autographs.

Jurgen Klinsmann maintains they shouldn’t expect the U.S. to lift soccer’s top trophy for the first time July 13, even if that stance upsets some.

“I think for us now, talking about winning a World Cup is just not realistic,” the American coach said Wednesday during his first news conference in Brazil before the tournament. “First, we’ve got to make it through the group. So let’s stay with our feet on the ground and say let’s get that group first done, and then the sky is the limit.”

The Americans open Monday against Ghana, the team that eliminated them from the last two World Cups, then play No. 4 Portugal and FIFA Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo. They close group play against three-time champion Germany, the world’s second-ranked team.

Odds makers peg the U.S. chances of winning the title at 250-1, up from 60-1 before December’s draw. “I’ll be at the Natal game. I’ll be in Manaus. And I’ll also be in Recife — and, hopefully, the next stage,” Liliana Ayalde, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, said after the almost two-hour training session.

Klinsmann won the 1990 World Cup as a player for West Germany and coached Germany to the 2006 semifinals. He caused a stir last weekend when he was quoted by The New York Times Magazine as saying in a December interview “we cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet.” Klinsmann, who has lived in Orange Country, California, for most of the last 16 years, was accused by some commentators of having an un-American mentality.

“If it’s now American or not American, I don’t know,” he said. “You can correct me however you want.”

Mix Diskerud, the 23-year-old midfielder with a Norwegian father and Arizonan mother, took Klinsmann’s remarks as a challenge.

“That’s an opportunity for us to prove him wrong,” he said.

Midfielder Alejandro Bedoya thought it was a meaningless debate.

“The media, when they get a chance to get a hold of anything, they’ll get it going,” he said. “He’s been optimistic with us since Day 1, and there’s nothing short of confidence in him and his belief in us.”